27. Twenty-Seven
TWENTY-SEVEN
M y initial inclination upon seeing my mother with Ryder Stone was to tell Olivia I had no loyalty to Sharon. If she and Ryder were up to no good, they deserved to get into trouble. Still, I hesitated.
And that was how I found myself in Candy’s office an hour before my shift was supposed to start the following day.
I had sat on the information for a full twenty-four hours, wondering what in the world I was supposed to do with it.
I’d worked with Ronan in the studio and then separated from him two hours before, pretending I’d forgotten my uniform at home when it was really in my bag.
His shift started an hour before mine, so it made sense we wouldn’t go in together.
“Well, this is a surprise.” She leaned back in her chair and regarded me with unfathomable eyes. “I never thought you would purposely seek me out. I was under the impression I would have to keep chasing you if I ever wanted to get anywhere.”
“This isn’t about me,” I insisted.
Candy arched an eyebrow. “Is it about Ronan?”
That question threw me. “No. I … no.” Vehemently, I shook my head. “Why would you think it’s about Ronan?”
“Because you two have been spending a lot of time together. The Stone gossip machine is in high gear where you’re concerned.” Her eyes twinkled, suggesting she was amused.
Well, she wasn’t going to stay amused. “Ronan and I are … figuring things out.” That was the only way I could describe what was going on between us. “That’s not why I’m here, though.”
“No?” She leaned back in her chair, her eyes shrewd. “Then tell me why you’re here.”
“I’m here because there’s something weird going on.”
“With Kyla?”
I made a face. “There’s always something weird going on with her. Kyla’s weird doesn’t hold a candle to the new weird, though.”
“And what’s the new weird?”
I told her what Ronan and I had seen, leaving nothing out. I wasn’t prone to histrionics, so I was matter of fact with my retelling. When I finished, I just stared as I waited for her to respond. Unfortunately, she didn’t seem as worked up as I’d expected.
“So your mother has been seen with Ryder Stone.” She pursed her lips, absorbing the information. “I guess I’m not certain why that’s important.”
Frustration reared up and grabbed me by the throat. “My mother can’t be trusted. If she’s here, working with the man who single-handedly almost took down the entire Stone empire, that’s a bad thing. There are no circumstances where any of this could be considered good.”
“I guess that’s interesting,” she mused, rolling her neck. “I need you to tell me why you think it’s a bad thing. Ryder Stone has been removed from his position. From what I understand, he has zero power in the organization.”
“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want power.”
“Fair enough, but how would he get it? More importantly, how would your mother help him get it?”
Those were very good questions. “I don’t know,” I admitted, deflating a bit. “I can’t think of any scenario where she would be able to help him.”
“So why are you worried?” She sounded utterly rational. I knew what she was doing, however, and I wasn’t in the mood to play that game.
“I’m not here to talk about my mother,” I snapped a little more harshly than I’d anticipated.
She arched an eyebrow. “You came in here and announced that your mother is hanging around Ryder Stone. If you’re not here to talk about her, who are you here to talk about?”
“I just…” How could I explain this without getting into my whole past?
Candy’s voice was gentle when she spoke again. “Tallulah, nothing you say here will be used against you. I’m well aware of your mother’s rather colorful past. I don’t happen to believe the sins of the parent should be held against the child.”
“My relationship with Sharon has nothing to do with my life, though.”
“Doesn’t it?” Candy challenged. “Doesn’t your mother’s poor parenting inform everything you do?”
“No.”
She folded her arms across her chest and waited.
“No,” I repeated. “I’ve been over her being a crap mother for a very long time.”
“Except you’re not over it.” Candy shook her head. “I’ve done research on you.”
“Yes, you’ve told me.” I was still mad about her accessing my juvenile records.
“I don’t blame you for being irritated that I dug into your past,” she said. “I would be irritated too. You weren’t giving me anything, though. My job is to make sure this casino runs as smoothly as possible. The high rollers lounge was very defective for a time.”
“It seems to be running smoothly now,” I argued.
“Yes, now that you and Ronan have stopped fighting one another and started doing something else, things have been running smoothly.” Her lips quirked. “That doesn’t mean the lounge doesn’t still have a problem.”
It took me a moment to figure out her meaning. Kyla. Candy wasn’t watching Ronan and me any longer. She was watching Kyla. When I thought back at her actions in the lounge over the past month or so, that became glaringly apparent.
“You…” I didn’t say anything else. I wasn’t certain of what to say.
“You and Ronan are not in trouble,” Candy assured me. “In fact, Zach Stone made sure I understood the no-fraternization rule was a bunch of crap and that it wasn’t going to be enforced. He’s so serious about that, he’s actually going to have the rule removed from the handbook at the next meeting.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “I guess that’s good.”
“He rightfully pointed out that love matches are formed at work more than anywhere else. He doesn’t want to take that away from people.
Apparently, when Ronan expressed his fear about losing his job—and stressed that Zach should fire him and not you if it became a thing—Zach decided to get proactive. ”
“I didn’t know Ronan did that,” I admitted.
“Didn’t you do something like that with Ruby, telling her to fire you and not him?”
There was no hiding my scowl. “This place is unbelievable,” I complained. “Is there anybody not talking trash?”
“Ruby was not talking trash. She simply made me aware that she was also going to take action to have that item stricken from the handbook. She mentioned you when we were talking about it.”
Candy leaned forward. “You should realize that I’d already figured out something was going on with you and Ronan before either of the Stone siblings approached me about the handbook.
They asked me to put together something for the new handbook that outlines what is and isn’t acceptable for workplace romances.
They don’t want it to be a free-for-all. ”
“Ugh.” Briefly, I closed my eyes. When I thought about it—I’d always hated people knowing my private business—I realized I was nowhere near as frustrated at the news as I’d anticipated. “I don’t care who knows about Ronan and me,” I announced after a beat.
Realizing I meant it was startling, but I doubled down. “We’re trying to figure things out. That’s where we’re at.”
“I believe you and Ronan will have no trouble figuring things out. You seem to be kindred souls.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Trauma might seem different, but sometimes it’s not different at all. He had an overbearing father. I managed to suss out everything I needed to know about his relationship with Norbert in the brief time I watched them across the lounge that day.”
I was interested despite myself. “His father is mean.”
Candy chuckled. “That’s an interesting word choice.”
“He doesn’t respect Ronan’s choices. Ronan doesn’t want to run the Hawthorne. He wants to be an artist.”
“And so do you.”
“So do I what?”
“Want to be an artist.”
“I … love art.” I chose my words carefully. This was a surprisingly difficult conversation to have. “I was raised to believe that there was no chance of making a living with art, however, and I took it to heart. It’s just a hobby.”
“Your mother told you there was no future in art?”
“My mother told me a lot of things.”
“I would like to know what those things are.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re closer to a breakthrough than you seem to understand. You just need a little push. I’ve been determined not to push you because I don’t think you do well under pressure. You came to me today, however. I’ve decided to change things up.”
“Maybe I don’t want to talk to you about this.” I crossed my arms over my chest. Even though I knew it was a defiant position, I couldn’t help myself.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” It could’ve been lip service—it felt a little like lip service—but she was sincere. I could read it in her eyes.
On an exasperated sigh, I relaxed my position. “Why do you care?”
“It’s my job to care.”
“Right.”
“That being said,” she continued, “I find you intriguing. You’ve overcome a great deal. You can be more than you ever dreamed of. You have to get over this final hump before that’s possible, though.”
She made me want to confide in her. Nobody since Robin had ever managed that.
Before I realized what I was going to do, I was talking.
“She was a terrible mother. I know you’ve read my file.
That’s not even all of it. She was only caught leaving me alone a few times when I had no business being left alone. She left me way more than that.”
“I figured.”
“You might think I hate her because of all of this—and in some ways I do—but I’m also grateful for her.”
I thought Candy would gasp and be stunned by my admission. She wasn’t. “She taught you to be a survivor,” she supplied.
“She did, and I’ve managed to survive completely on my own for the entirety of my life.”
“You chose to be a loner.”
“It worked for me for a time.” My eyes moved to the lone office window. “Somehow—and I’m going to wonder how for a long time—things shifted for me. I’m no longer happy being alone.”
“You mean Ronan shifted things for you.”
That felt too simplistic. “Ronan is part of it. Olivia is part of it too. Rex, Ruby, and Zach are all part of it. We’ve kind of formed this little group.”
“That’s called friendship.”